Teddy to Join the Bates College Bobcats!

Teddy Pender from Year 13 has been accepted into Bates College in Lewiston, Maine. Although he has the rest of the academic year to complete, Teddy is feeling excited already!

He received the offer of a place in December, with the additional good news that he will receive financial aid on the basis of his swimming skills. This is certainly well-deserved; Teddy took part in the Irish National Short Course Swimming Championships in November 2013 and came away with a silver medal in the Men’s 50 Metre Breaststroke and excellent timings in his other categories.

He plans to major in mathematics, but also keep improving his swimming skills. In conjunction with his studies, he will join the Bates College Bobcats in the water under the watchful eye of Coach Peter Casares. Both the team and Coach Casares have a fantastic reputation, and Teddy is sure to receive expert guidance to continue to improve during his time at Bates College.

This was partly why he was attracted to studying in America: the university system in the US allows students to mesh academics and athletics in a way that is not possible in the UK.

Teddy will be following in the footsteps of his brother Patrick, who is studying at Harvard. Bates College is just two hours away, and while some siblings might not appreciate the proximity, the opposite is true here. Teddy admitted to missing his brother, and said that he is looking forward to seeing him more often when he gets to the US.

In achieving a place at Bates College, Teddy joins the ranks of athletic Old Boys who have travelled out to the US to study and received funding for their sporting talents. Football scholarships have previously been awarded to Tom Whittaker by the University of Rio Grande Ohio, Chas Parry by Purdue University in Indiana, and Krishnan Patel by Lassen Community College on the West Coast. Other sports scholarship recipients include Chris Nott, who accepted a tennis scholarship from the University of Arizona, golfer Paul Drinkwater, who is reading Economics in Austin, and swimmer Daniel Sliwinski, who studied at the University of Indiana.